


Boys of Summer

by auselysium



Category: Coronation Street
Genre: Drug Use, Headcanon, M/M, NON MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, alcohol use, non graphic descriptions of rough sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:36:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7890196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has his first kiss when he’s 16.</p><p>Or the story of Billy Mayhew and how he comes out, falls in love, gets his heart broken, finds God and finds Todd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys of Summer

He has his first kiss when he’s 16. Relatively late for that milestone, especially for a lad as good looking, outgoing and well liked as Billy.

Truth be told, it isn’t really his first kiss. There had been silly teenage games at parties. Seven Minutes in Heaven or Truth or Dare, where the real dare had been convincing himself that he liked the girls he was kissing. There had even been a girlfriend or two. Girls he’d taken out to appease his father, whose hands he’d held and who he’d kissed goodnight only to leave feeling like he’d necked a piece of cardboard and even more _sure_.

So this kiss is the one he considers his first. It’s the first he wanted so badly, had imagined for weeks. This is the first kiss that made his stomach sway and his heart flutter up to his throat just thinking about it. Because this kiss, in the twinkling twilight of a fading summer, was his first with a boy.

Perhaps his father had already suspected his boy might be well, _You know..._

If he had, sending him to an all boys summer camp probably hadn’t been the smartest move. But by that point, Mr. Mayhew most likely just wanted Billy out of his way so he could be left to his drink in peace.

It was one of those manly camps with Christian undertones, where they woke with the sun and ran 5k’s before breakfast, perfected useless knots, sailed boats, and shot archery in between classes on leadership and citizenship. He tried not to roll his eyes as his teachers clutched their copies of the King James and those Christian undertones became overtones.

He and David had been assigned the same table for meals. They spend the first two weeks of breakfasts, lunches and dinners eyeing each other sheepishly, sharing private smiles and wondering if they were seeing the same hopeful glint in the other’s eye.

When Billy asks David to pass the water pitcher one lunch and David’s fingers brush against Billy’s, his gaze lingers, solid and heavy, letting him know it had been no mistake. Billy’s fiery blush races past his cheeks and over his scalp and his heart pounds.

But it takes until the final night of camp for either boy to work up the courage to act on their month long flirtation.

All rules are off that final night. Curfew is forgotten. The counselors who had been rigid taskmasters all summer, are now acting like cool older brothers, sitting around the campfire late into the night, strumming guitar chords from familiar songs into the peaceful air.

So perhaps that is how Billy and David are allowed to creep away into the soft forest unnoticed, their fingers laced and trembling.

Neither says a word before David kisses him, his tongue instantly too thick and clumsy in Billy’s mouth.

When the kiss breaks, it’s as if they both know how terrible it has been.

“Sorry,” David mutters.

“Maybe we should just...try that again?” Billy says, with a hopeful smile.

And they do.

*

Without much fanfare, Billy loses his virginity less than 12 months later in the backseat of Colin’s car.

The night had started innocently enough, but Colin, two years older and ten times as experienced, had quickly made it clear to Billy just how he wanted the night to end.

It is well past two in the morning by the time Billy finds himself half naked, his knees hiked up to his shoulders, Colin’s head between his thighs and his fingers pressing into places Billy himself has never even explored. The windows are steamed up and sweat is heavy on his brow as the buzzing hum of parking lot security lights sets the background.

It isn’t the emotional, tender first time he’d imagined, but as he watches Colin’s head rise and fall, as the raw urges of his 17-year old self take over and he hears noises and words tumble from his lips he didn’t know were possible, he wants this moment to go on forever.

When they sleep together a second time in an empty bedroom at a friend’s party and then a third on the relative privacy of a couch in Colin’s basement, Billy finds himself wanting to ask into the quiet of the afterglow if this means they are boyfriends.

But he never works up the courage.

And Colin never offers an answer of his own.

So Billy never knows what to call this tryst between them.

It’s alright though, in the end. Because having a boyfriend would mean having to say “the words” out loud to his father. And Billy isn’t ready for that fight.

But another year on, after top scores on all his A-levels, admission to his first choice for Uni and out from under the disapproving eye of his father, Billy meets Max.

They kiss for the first time on the crowded dance floor at a party, shocking no one but themselves. They hold hands in the darkness of the movie theatre and spend nights in each other's beds, “sexiling” their roommates with more and more frequency.

It feels good to finally have a proper boyfriend, to find that companionship in another person.

Then one night Max tells him, with tears in his eyes, that he’s actually started to have feelings for Erik, a fellow first year from Cardiff. Billy would be more upset if he didn’t already, kind of, sort of have a thing for Caleb who lives down the hall from him.

He befriends Lisa who proudly announces, to any and all, that she, “Prefers the term ‘fruit fly’, thank you very much,” and Billy flirts shamelessly with all her potential boyfriends.

“I’m just testing them out for you, love. Making sure they are good enough for you,” he says and Lisa just rolls her eyes. Billy spares her the details of those who take him up on his offer.

Billy evolves into a young man with confidence, making friends easily and gaining the respect of his professors. Now with a handful of lovers under his belt, he relishes the quiet comfort of knowing this isn’t a phase or a whim but his true self, made by the universe to be exactly the way he is. He works with the campus Gay/Straight alliance and cannot understand those who still see homosexuality as a deviance, a disease. As something sick and unacceptable.

People like his father.

*

Mr. Mayhew is too drunk to hit Billy when he finally tells him the following summer.

In fact, after the words are out his father is simply silent. They sit across the kitchen table, the fluorescent lights overhead only making his father’s wan skin more sickly. The clock on the wall ticks away the seconds. Otherwise, the silence is only interrupted by the announcers for the rugby match Lee has on in the other room. Time, for Billy who is so nervous he feels physically ill, seems to stretch forever.

But when Mr. Mayhew’s words do come, slurred and lumbering, they land with as much pain as any punch.

“What do you want me to say, eh?” He asks, gruffly, giving Billy a malicious grin. “You want me to tell you that it’s ok? That I’m _proud_?” He drags the word, his unshaven face grimaced and vile.

“Because it’s not ok. You are a disgusting queer and I always knew it too. Knew there was something wrong with you. But I did my job. I raised you to be a real man not to roll over for one.”

For a while Billy takes the verbal beating, his hands clenched tightly to the edges of the table so that he doesn’t cry. He waits, giving his father every chance to change his course. Hoping that after the initial vitriol things might die down, he might give up the fight.

But when he says, “You know, I’m glad your mum left all those years ago because if she hadn’t rejected all of us then, she sure as hell wouldn’t want anything to do with you, the filthy pouf, now,” Billy has heard enough.

He gets up from the table without a word and packs a bag. “I’m so sorry, Lee. But I can’t…I just can’t,” he manages to say as his little brother, not even 13, clutches at the door frame, begging him to stay with tears in his eyes.

As he closes the door behind him, he turns to look back at his home, so plain and normal looking from the outside. Just by looking at it, no one could have any idea what living there had truly been like.

“Billy? That you?”

No one except Ben, who had been his good mate and neighbor from a few houses down since primary school. Ben had heard the shouting fights. Heard the squeal of tires as his mum had sped away, never to come back. Seen his father embarrass himself, drunk and carousing in the middle of the day.

They’d never talked about it, as emotionally inept, teenage boys are want to do. But that tacit understanding, tacit knowing, had been comfort enough.

Billy turns to see Ben now, out for a walk with their family dog Rosie in the cool night.

“Everything alright?” He asks even though it is clear things are anything but. Billy shivers, his bag clutched in both hands, tear tracks on his face. “Come on then,” Ben says with a knowing tone. “I’ll have mum make up the guest bed.”

*

Ben, just returned home for summer too, is broader, his face more chiseled than Billy had remembered. Both things doing little to help the crush he’d harbored on him for years.

It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen for a straight mate, just the first time that crush had lingered on for so long.

Even after he’d left home, when he’d catch a wiff of the cologne Ben wore, Billy would be flooded with warm memories of him. A chain email from Ben or a waiting message on ICQ with his screen name attached, would literally make Billy’s heart stutter.

So when Ben’s parents, either out of pity or understanding (after all, they knew full well what Mr. Mayhew could be like too) offered them the chance to spend the remainder of break in charge of fixing up the house they’d just bought in the lake district in exchange for room and board, Billy almost said no. Could he really survive a summer with Ben and not act on his feelings? Not be left heartbroken by rejection?

But it was a summer by the beach and far away from his father, so a few days later Billy finds himself trundling down a long, dirt road towards the lake. The seagrass grows nearly high as the window’s on Ben’s truck laden with building supplies and tools.

They spend their days outside with hammers and saws, sun-soaked and paint splattered. The manual labor is rewarding in a way Billy hadn’t expected. The satisfying heft of a hammer, the intricate cuts of clapboard, feel miles away from his uni courses and what he’d left behind.

Come evening, they sit by the rhythmic water smoking Dunhill cigarettes and raiding Ben’s parents well stocked liquor cabinet.

Ben had always been a risk taker and just like Billy he’d explored parts of himself off at university that had remained in check while living at home. He regales Billy with tales of taking E before his calculous final and still passing. Of the night he spent fucking two women at once and then snuck out of their flat before either woke up. Of pure bacchanalian debauchery that makes Billy blush just at the thought of it even while he questions the whole truth of it.

“If you can’t do it while you’re in school, when can you, eh?” He asks, giving Billy a dashing smile. Billy nods as he swallows down the flutter in his chest with another swig of beer.

“Suppose you’re right. After all, you’ve come home a verified lothario and I come home a raging homosexual.”

“I’m pretty sure you were already that before you left.”

They both laugh but then Ben turns somber.

“Is that why the old man kicked you out?”

“He didn’t kick me out. I left.”

Ben leans over and kisses him quickly on the cheek, his pride in Billy emanating from his actions. Before Billy can react, Ben stands, brushing the sand from his backside and heading back up the grassy hill towards the house.

*

A few nights later, Billy watches the waves crest and fall in the moonlight from the porch they’d just finished repairing that afternoon. A storm is coming in from across the water, the dark clouds an impenetrable black.

He hears the door open and close behind him when Ben catches him completely off guard.

Stone cold sober, the wind rushing through his dirty-blond fringe, Ben takes Billy by the waist and holds nothing back, kissing him just like Billy had always imagined he would. Expertly and wholley.

It leaves him breathless.

“What are you doing?” Billy asks, needing to hold onto the railing for support.

“I’m not sure...,” Ben says, stepping back and looking to the floor. But then, with utmost sincerity, he looks back up at Billy. “It’s just… it’s something I think I'm supposed to be doing.”

“Does this mean that... that you are too….?”

“Does it matter?” Ben says with an easy shrug, sidling his way back close to Billy. He can smell Ben’s cologne on his own shirt, can taste the tingle of that gorgeous kiss still on his lips. “I want to be with you, Billy. I want to know…”

That had been all the convincing Billy had needed.

Billy takes him into his bedroom and takes over the reigns, satisfying every teenage fantasy he’d ever had about Ben and realizing reality is better. They walk on beach as the sun sets, shoulder to shoulder, their pinkies entwining when they touch. They wake each other up with trails of kisses down tanned backs, leading to morning blowjobs under the sheets. Ben rolls a joint then covers Billy’s mouth with his, filling Billy’s lungs with his own smoke-heavy breath. For the first time, Billy feels the heat and closeness of being inside another man’s body, made all the more intense as Ben comes undone beneath him because it is Ben.

“I love you,” Billy says one night as the summer breathes its last.

He’s resting gently in Ben’s arms, their bare feet stretched out in front of them on the cool grass. He can feel Ben’s body change around him, can see Ben’s heart break across his face as he realizes what he’s played with.

“Billy...mate...I...”

Ben hadn't needed to say anything more.

Billy’s worst fears of a heartbroken summer had come true.

*  
He returns to university feeling darker. Jaded and a bit lost.

Billy opens to Lisa about his summer with Ben. Then, when he’s able, sobs with his head in her lap and her fingers running soothing his hair, as he tells her about coming out to his father.

But by the end of the year he feels himself brighten from the inside. Broken hearted or no, fatherless or no: life, as they say, goes on.

Between his terms spent reading the Dostoevsky and the Torah, Plato and Immanuel Kant, Billy stays in Manchester, working odd jobs before finally landing a cush gig at a coffee shop near the top of Canal Street. His sculpted biceps and smile a mile wide always leave him with plenty of tips from the customers.

He befriends two co-workers, Chris and Justin and ends up kipping on their couch most nights instead of making the trek back to his campus apartment. Eventually he officially moves in, getting the spare room in the back. It has no windows and is probably actually a storage closet, but he loves it.

He hooks up with Justin just once before they both realize they truly are better off as friends. And Chris is never anything more than a big brother figure to him.

It’s the first time Billy has gay friends, the first time he feels like he’s part of The Community, embraced and loved and accepted. Lisa joins them on their nightly escapades, dragging along whatever bloke she is dating at the time and they quickly become all the family Billy could ever need.

Inspired by their youth, their looks and money enough to line their pockets, the trio fill those long summer nights to the very tip top. Billy feeds off Chris and Justin’s recklessness, joining in as much as he is able, but always a bit in awe that they feel so free.

He watches Chris, tall and lanky, with a runner’s build and crooked teeth, a bloke who matches no one's ideal of a looker, pull any bloke he pleases night after night based off his charm and confidence alone.

Billy sips his pints and downs his shots as Justin tosses his head back, his veins thrumming with any and everything money can buy, riding his high out under the pulsating lights of the dance floor.

Living in the Queer as Folk inspired, post-HIV era where condoms at every pharmacy counter and easy access to STI testing make them feel superhuman, they drink and dance, laugh and sweat their way through those long nights.

Billy wakes up one morning with a tattoo sprawled over his shoulder and a bloke in his bed he doesn't know. Just enough foggy memory finds its through his hangover for him to remember picking out the tattoo design, Colin and his nameless bedmate cheering him on.

“These are the nights we’ll remember forever, mate,” Colin says later that afternoon as he carefully rubs lotion into Billy’s fresh ink.

He smiles carefully up at Colin and wonders if this is what it feels like to be sexually liberated.

If it is, he’s not sure he likes it. But not unsure enough to stop.

*

He graduates Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Philosophy, so obviously he keeps working at the coffee shop.

Chris tosses Billy’s new mobile phone on the counter one afternoon as Billy has finally managed to line up a date with a regular (Mr. Medium Cafe au Lait With Skim) for that evening.

“This thing’s been ringing off the hook in the breakroom. Are those things really fucking necessary? Do you really have to be accessible all the time?”

Billy rolls his eyes at Chris’ resistance to the new technology and looks to find 4 missed calls and 2 messages listed on the small green screen. Two are from a number he recognizes as Ben’s house, one from a number he doesn’t know. And shockingly enough, one is from his own home phone.

He listens to the messages.

_Billy, it’s Mrs. Parker, Ben’s mum. Please call when you get this, love. It’s urgent._

The phone clicks over to the next message.

_Hiya, bruv. It’s Lee._

Billy nearly topples over. He hasn’t heard his brother’s voice in years and it’s deep now, the voice of a man. He quickly does the math and realizes Lee is 16. How is that possible?

_Look, there’s no real good way to say this. Dad’s in a bad way. He’s not got long now and if you could...well, I don’t know...if you wanted to come say goodbye, well now would be the time. Just call me back, or whatever._

The news is delivered with all the teenage apathy and dissociation one might expect when reaching out to a family member that had abandoned you. Billy isn’t the first one to leave Lee, either and now he is being asked to bear the burden of this news.

“Everything alright?” Mr. Cafe au Lait brings his empty mug up to the counter, a smile playing at his lips to offset the awkwardness.

“No,” Billy manages. “My father is dying.”

The reality hits him like a freight train.

“Excuse me,” he says, rushing to the backroom before breaking down.

He never does go on that date.

*

His father dies three weeks later on a blisteringly hot early September day. It’s the kind of day that should have been cool, hinting at fall but instead holds on bitterly to summer.

Billy had stayed at home in the interim, waiting for that bedside moment of mercy. But even his toxic liver was not reason enough for Mr. Mayhew to reconcile with his gay son. If anything, the end stage symptoms of the cirrhosis made it worse. His mind poisoned by his own body, his words became all the more volatile, lashing out about Billy’s woeful future, his lack of career, his waste of potential. Of course, he saves the choicest, most repellent words for his sexuality.

Billy ignores the tirades as much as he can, even as he repeats them verbatim until he falls asleep each night in his childhood bedroom.

He holds it together for the funeral, sitting through eulogies from aunts he doesn’t even remember and remembrances from his father’s mates from down the pub who remember a completely different man than Billy had ever seen.

“He was a good friend. Always up for a laugh,” One says as he shakes Billy’s hand. He wants to take punch the sympathy right off his face.

By the time the last guest leaves the reception, Billy has had enough.

Enough of this house, this town, this family so broken and hateful, this father so malicious to the very end. He can’t stand looking at the brother he left behind, already dropped out of school and messing with the wrong crowd.

He hates them all for how poorly it reflects back on him. Highlighting his own failure. His own disappointments.

The swift spiral downward and out of control is inevitable.

Billy takes the keys to his father’s old Vauxhall, still wearing his suit and tie from the funeral and drives through the night. Worried calls from Lisa and Chris, Ben’s mum and even eventually Ben himself that buzz through the night with that horrific Nokia ringtone, go ignored.

He doesn’t stop until he’s in London, heading straight to one of the only bars left open in Soho at that hour.

He says yes when the bartender offers him something strong. Says yes when an older man across the bar offers to buy him another one. Yes to the little pill he presses into Billy’s hand. And to the second he presses to Billy’s tongue with his own.

He says yes going back to his place. Yes when he forces Billy to his knees, then to all fours. He groans yes to the stranger taking him from behind with little to no preparation and certainly no protection.

He says yes to everything, even when things go too far. Even when things get too rough. When he feels scared.

He says yes.

Which is why he finds himself sat at A&E at University College Hospital the next morning like some young, gay cliche: wearing his clothes from the night before, coming down from a mix of chemicals, smelling of booze and sex, his body sore and used, bruises around his neck and bite marks on his thighs to prove it.

He thinks of calling Chris and Justin, who he knows would drop everything in a heartbeat and race to London to be with him. But then he thinks, for as much as Chris fucks around he is always safe and for as much as Justin tinkers with drugs is always in control.

Billy had been anything but and he knows they would be disappointed in him, too. He can’t bare it.

So he cries openly and alone, the tears falling fast and steady.

He could pretend the night before had been a massive mistake, that he’d been taken advantage of. The word _rape_ flutters in his subconscious but no...He’d wanted it. Asked for it. In some sick, twisted way - needed it.

Perhaps his father was right after all. He is disgusting.

“Young man, are you quite alright?”

The man’s voice is so gentle he feels like he’s been wrapped in a blanket of the softest fleece.

He looks up through his tears. The dog collar gleams bright white in the stark morning. The gold lettering on that Holy book shine.

“I--I don’t know yet,” Billy stutters.

The vicar looks at the un-read pamphlet clutched in Billy’s trembling hands _What if it’s positive? How to adjust to a life with HIV._

He sits with Billy, hand on his shoulder until the test comes back negative.

*  
That night becomes his darkest secret. He tells no one, not even Lisa when NHS calls 6 weeks later to inform him that the second round of HIV/STI tests had been negative too even though she’s sitting right next to him at lunch and sees the relief on his face.

But he starts keeping another secret, too. One he knows his friends would have an even harder time accepting.

The first time it happens he doesn’t even stay the whole time. It’s almost an accident. He’d popped round to the corner shop early that Sunday because they were out of milk and he knew Justin would throw a royal fit if he was forced to drink his tea black.

The service is just starting, the hollow notes of the organ pipes spill out onto the street as Billy walks past and he finds himself drawn in. Drawn to the open, welcoming doors. The serene light spilling through the tall stained glass.

He stands in the back, awkwardly turning down a seat and a program when they are offered. He clutches the milk bottle and listens to those familiar hymns, coming back to him from his younger days. From that time before his mum left and before his father hit the bottle and they would all go, gussied up and hair slicked, as a proper family.

He rushes back onto the street and home to his flat before any more nostalgia can bite him.

But then he finds himself there again the next week, dragging himself out of bed after a late night with the boys.

It’s not that he believes what is being preached, at least not at first. After all, he spent the majority of his studies with the likes Aquinas and Aristotle, studied the Gnostic Gospels and the Quran like a canonical works of literature with a critical eye. He knows Nietzche declared God is dead and Kirkegaard demanded each individual find their own path to God in this ridiculous world and yet Billy wants to be there, sat in the pews, seeking truth. Finding comfort in this world of mysticism and faith.

He is welcomed with opens arms by the congregation, without judgement of his sexuality, not caring about his past that brought him here. The acceptance of an all-forgiving, all-loving Father washes over him gradually, creeping up through his bones until he is full of a love greater than he’d ever known.

One Sunday after the service, he finds himself sobbing for nearly 30 minutes in the Parish Hall bathroom. Crying tears of utter joy.

This is it. His calling.

“I’m going to go seminary.”

Billy announces it one morning over brunch several months later, after sufficient courage had been garnered. Lisa nearly spits out her coffee. And Justin laughs.

“Semi-what?” Justin asks.

“I’m going to become a Vicar and serve the Church of England.”

His heart pounds as his friends go silent.

“I don’t understand,” Justin continues, not purposefully being dense.

“You don’t even go to church,” Lisa says with a angry snap to her tone.

“Well, I have been...since my dad…”

  
“Billy, mate,” Chris speaks up, sitting forward on his side of the table. “I get it, you’re freaking out. Your dad’s dead, it would be hard on anyone but you can’t actually believe all that bull shit, can you?”

“It’s not bull shit, Chris. I believe in God, in the holy trinity, in the Resurrection of Christ…”

“Oh my fuck, I cannot take this,” Lisa blusters, gathering her things and quickly leaving the restaurant. Justin gives him a pained look and goes after her.

Chris sits opposite him, irate and confused and hurt. And Billy is reminded of another coming out which had not gone well either.

“So,” Chris says cooly. “You turning breeder then? Deny that you’re gay and start shaming blokes like me?”

“What?” Billy snaps. “No, of course not. Chris, it’s still me. But this feels right. I mean, with an honors degree in philosophy...what else am I going to do?”

The mild humors lands flat.

“Not this,” Chris snaps. “Not becoming some mindless, Bible thumping, sycophant. You’re my best mate, Billy. My brother. But this... I don’t know who you are anymore.”

He leaves Billy with tears in his eyes.

*

Moving out seems the right thing to do. So does quitting his job at the coffee shop. He begins volunteering at the church, puts in his application and is accepted to theological school the following spring.

The day before his studies begins, he wonders what his father would have thought. Not that his father was such a man of faith, but he wonders if he would have managed to find a modicum of pride for Billy in choosing such a respectable path.

Probably doesn’t really matter, he finally decides. He’s not doing this for anyone, not even himself, just the greater good.

He meets Matthew the first day and though he’d vowed to focus on God and his studies, Billy can’t help but take note of him. He’s a handsome man. His pale chocolate skin and rich brown eyes are a stunning companion to his easy attitude and warm smile.

They become friends first, lunches together in the courtyard as the leaves turn from green to gold. Then one afternoon Matthew asks if Billy has a boyfriend instead of the more vague, genderless Are you seeing anyone?

“That obvious, is it?” Billy asks, blushing into this coffee.

“No,” Matthew says, sitting back against the bench. “Just takes one to know one.”

He winks.

They fall in love slowly, over the course of that first long year. Not just because they are the only two out men in their class (though they both agree it’s just a matter of time for several others) but because of the similar paths they have traveled.

Matthew tells Billy about his wealthy white parents, who paraded their mixed race family around like a trophy, proof of their liberal generosity, while at home his father was exacting and strict. He had been quick to show his disapproval with a hand or a fist, until one day Matthew pointed out he was big enough to hit back.

It is a secret progression. Partially out of reverence for their future employment. Partially out of complete wonder for each other. And partially out of the horrible memories of that wretched night that Billy has not moved on from even after nearly 18 months gone by, but their physical relationship moves almost painfully slow.

They hold hands with near Victorian decorum. Lavish kisses for weeks before hands ever touch skin.

“I think I love you,” Billy says across the library table one evening. Books for their end of term finals are piled high around them. He remembers the only other time he’s said those words and his stomach lurches.

“Think?” Matt says with a smile and a brush of his fingers to Billy’s knee under the table. “I _know_ I love you.”

After classes break for the summer, when Billy goes to see Matthew in the small flat he’s taken just this side of Liverpool, when lips work over flesh with virginal hesitance, when they finally make love after months of building to it as summer warms, it is with the certainty they are ready.

Laying in Matthew’s arms after, he realizes this is how it has to be every time he starts dating someone. Out of respect for his future title, yes, but also simple respect for himself. This one night together had meant more than all the encounters that had sustained him through his early 20’s. The emotions behind the act are enough to purify him of that one single, wretched night that could have been the end of everything.

But then again, lying Matthew’s arms, Billy can’t help but wonder if there will ever be another first time.

*

They don’t flaunt their relationship but it isn’t really a secret either. Most of their classmates know and those who do, support them, if somewhat cautiously.

Billy wishes he could introduce Matthew to the old crew, but only Justin has been able to come around to the whole “God business.” The three of them meet up for dinner one night and Justin gives Matthew his seal of approval.

They study together, pray together, encourage each other through the rigors of doubt and ascertain of faith that are so crucial to their education.

The course “Religious Impact on Current Policy” hits closer to home for them than most of their classmates.

“You think, even if the Church never sanctioned it, you think you’d ever get married?” Billy asks idly one night. Matthew’s books are strew across Billy’s coffee table, their logs knocking about as they fight for room on the couch.

“Don’t you mean civil unioned?” Matthew asks, jeering at the term. The law had only come into effect nation wide a few months before. Being able to commit to a partner legally was a prospect Billy had never really considered, especially since the Church was nowhere closer to encouraging the law.

“Whatever, you know it’s basically the same thing.”

“If it was to you, then...yeah, why not?”

Matthew curls over Billy and kisses him and he wonders if he’s just gotten engaged.

After graduation, they are placed with a working Vicar for their four year curate period and as much as they had had hoped to be placed at parishes in the same city, or at least in the same region, when Matthew is placed in Exeter and Billy just outside Leeds, those hopes of a happy life together begin to fade.

Billy goes to their advising Bishop, pleading their case.

“It’s what is best for you two lads,” he said without a hint a sympathy. That is when Billy realizes he must have known. Known about the two of them being a couple and had separated them on purpose. So much for a welcoming church.

As if to spite those who tried to break them apart, they stay together for the next 4 years, eventually getting their own parish jobs closer together but not close enough.

Not close enough that the holidays and spare stretches of days they can spend together are enough to sustain them.

So when Matthew calls, a heavy resignation in his voice and says, “I’ve met someone,” Billy cries and grieves but is not surprised.

*

It’s hard to move on. He even dates another bloke with the same name for a few months and tries not to compare. Tries and fails.

He convinces himself that being single is better. After all, the church ladies like thinking they can set him up with their nieces, or for the more perceptive ones, their grandsons.

He doesn’t let himself think that he wasted his 20’s, spending seven years committed to one man because he had loved Matthew so damned much. But as 30 looms, then passes, he sometimes remembers his carefree days in Manchester with the best friends he no longer has, half drunk on dance floors. Remembers, wonders what could have been and regrets.

By the time he moves to Weatherfield he can’t help it anymore and finds himself at one of those old haunts. It’s December and the bar is festive and full.

He stands at the bar, half wondering, half hoping he’ll bump into Chris. Instead he catches the eye of a blond fellow and smiles. They chat and flirt and Billy gets his number.

Being with Sean is like being wrapped in a perfect summer day all year year long. He is bubbly and warm, kind hearted and so very in love with Billy. There is an ease with Sean, despite his penchant for dramatic hand gestures and wild floral shirts, that allows Billy to readjust his expectations on what love looks and feels like. Maybe it isn’t some deep spiritual connection. Maybe it’s just easy. Just fun.

But that doesn’t make his feelings run any less deep. When things get complicated with a backwards thinking Bishop, Billy finds himself willing to quit his job at Saint Mary’s, give up being a vicar all together if it means staying with Sean.

“If my own Bishop won't accept it then it can't be the church for me.” He slips his clerical collar out from his shirt. “I've booked another appointment for 4. He'll ask me to reflect, try to talk me out of it.”

“Of what?” Sean asks, perplexed.

“Resigning. With regret. But he's not the only one with a conscience. And I love you, Sean,” He says for the first time, Sean’s soft jaw beneath his fingers.

“Why do I feel so sad?” Sean asks with his hand over his heart, his feelings so earnestly connected to Billy’s.

Thankfully it doesn’t come to that. Thankfully he gets to keep both his faith and his man.

*

Then what is it about Todd that turns his head? Why is it when Lee shows up, addicted to that needle in his arm, is it Todd and not Sean that he confides in? Why does Todd begin to feel like the closer mate? Like the one who understands him better?

Perhaps it is his own troublesome past. His own complicated relationship with his brother and his family. Perhaps it is those dangerous, olive eyes that are at once mischievous and empathetic. Those pillowy lips that are so eminently kissable.

Perhaps it is because Todd tests Billy. Pushes him to the limits of his faith and conscience. Lies roll off the tip of Todd’s tongue just as easily as the fierce defence of those he loves. And yet, his heart is so often light. Even with the memories of how he got that scar on his face, Todd can smile and crack on.

He starts feeling those pangs of desire every time Todd walks into the Rovers just as all the drama over Callum’s death reaches its peak. His heart flares and blood surges then pools every time they talk, sharing these intense secrets. Billy tries to keep his eyes on Sean, even as he wishes he could lean in closer to Tood. Inhale the mix of hair product and cologne more deeply. Feel the press of his thighs, firm under his skinny jeans.

But he can’t avoid how he feels forever. And neither can Todd.

“Hey, you know I’m trouble, don’t you?” Todd says, breathless as their first kiss mounts into something raw and alive.

“I’ve heard,” Billy breathes against Todd’s open mouth. “Luckily, trouble is my speciality.”

He’s not wanted someone like this in years. Maybe not since that first night in the back seat of Max’s car or those sun drenched summer days with Ben, has Billy felt this ravenous, this in need to be with and be close to another man.

Alone at the vicarage, the Bishop finally gone and two bottles of wine split between the three of them, Todd’s tongue caressing his own so expertly, it would be so easy to let Todd finish undoing his shirt after his snappy quip about the dog collar. It would be so easy to just let go and let Todd complete his undoing, mind and body.

But he manages to stop himself because he knows he’ll regret it if he doesn’t.

“It’s just me. Even before the dog collar,” Billy says when Todd asks what the problem is.

Todd takes a deep breath, those perfect lips in a small pout. “It could be fun. Or it might just drive me crazy.”

Billy is pretty sure he knows exactly how he feels.

*

They get as far as the bedroom a few nights later. Pillows spilled onto the floor, Todd’s shirt tossed aside and Billy’s fly undone. Todd’s palm had been so warm and steady, cupping Billy’s very obvious, very needy hard-on through his pants. It had provided the perfect friction and for one blinding moment that fire burning for Todd had been satisfied by his touch.

That’s when’d he grabbed Todd’s wrist, stopping him there.

Todd had sat back on his heels, pressing the heels of hand to his eye sockets. “I’m not trying to pressure you…I’m really not,” He says, his voice just this side of desperate. Todd melts in breathless desperation against him, hips swooping down to align with Billy’s, their bodies taut and ready for each other. “I just want you so badly,” he whispers with another kiss.

“I know,” Billy kisses him back. “I want you, too.”

Todd nearly growls as Billy places a hand firmly and clearly on his chest, creating space.

“I mean, I get taking things slow. You’ve got a reputation to uphold. But we’re grown men. Sean knows, my mum, even though they’re royally pissed at us at the moment. I mean, you have done this before, yeah?”

Billy quells his sarcasm with a stern look.

“Don’t mistake me wanting to take things slow for not wanting to be with you. Cause I do.” He kisses Todd again slow and beautiful, Todd sinks down into it eagerly. “I do.”

“Then can you at least tell me why?”

So he does. He tells him all about losing his father not once but twice. Tells him about his years with Matthew. About the night he got his tattoo and the friends he lost when he decided to become a Vicar.

And for the first time with anyone, Billy talks about the night in London. Todd pulls him close, sympathy and empathy and understanding that, yeah - things really can get that dark sometimes, emanating through his attentive silence. The memories, nearly a decade old still bring tears to Billy’s eyes.

And Todd talks too. About Sarah and their son. About trying to kiss Nick. About falling for Karl and manipulating Marcus. He talks about posh Jules and his own Ben who he’d really, truly actually loved and who, when he broke his heart, had turned it into something vindictive and petty. He talks about his feelings of failure, of falling short of his potential. He talks about all the times he’s been let down and let people down in return.

The days pass and their hearts fill and when finally Billy asks if Todd wants to stay the night with glittering intent clear in his eyes, he makes it worth his while.

Their hands clench tight as Todd sinks into him slowly, tenderly, nurturing Billy’s climax along with his own. Todd mixes his name with curse words as he comes, slurring them against the shell of his ear with fierce intimacy. They make love and they fuck all at once because it’s all there: every emotion, every want, every need.

Everything that could possibly grow between two people has blossomed between them.

Billy is almost overwhelmed to feel what he does for Todd. In less than a summer’s length, he has gone from _falling for_ to _falling in love_ with Todd.

It’s not the innocent first love he’d felt with Ben. Not the serious, spiritual love he’d felt with Matthew. Not even the carefree love he’d had with Sean.

It’s only everything.

“You know, as much as it pains me to admit it, I’m glad we waited.”

Todd is sat in nothing but his boxers the following morning. The sun streams through the kitchen window, catching the steam wafting off his morning cuppa.

“Oh?” Billy says, as he settles into the chair next to him, his limbs lax and weary in the very best of ways. “What’s got you changing your tune?”

“Besides having the fuck of my life last night?”

Billy’s eyes bulge at the crassness but takes the compliment. Todd’s not wrong afterall.

“No, it’s because...this, you and me. It’s different.”

“Different how?”

“It’s...important.  Permanent,” Todd blushes.

“You think so?” Billy muses.

“I hope so.” Todd fiddles with his tea handle. “I told my mum weeks ago, when she found out that about us that…” He takes a stuttering breath. “That I’ve never felt like his about anyone before. And that... I think you might be the one.”

Billy knows this type of intimacy comes much harder for Todd. What they did last night, that kind of emotional confession is much easier. So he takes Todd’s hand in his, laces their fingers together, kisses the back of his hand gently.

“Do you mean that?” He keeps his voice gentle.

Todd’s gorgeous eyes flutter and lock with Billy’s. His face morphs into something young and nervous as he nods. “I do.”

“Good. Cause I feel the same way.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Billy says, smiling at the relief on Todd’s face. “I love you, Todd.”

For a moment they just smile at each other before Todd stabs his fork playfully into a bit of his eggs and takes a self-satisfied bite. “Course you do.”

Billy leans over and kisses that smug smile right off his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> First off, I needed to write this because I love Billy so much and I wanted to sort out his backstory. We've heard glimpses but I wanted the full tale of how a club boy from a broken home could become a Vicar late in life. 
> 
> Secondly, I got a lot of inspiration from my and my friends lives. A few of the vignettes, the names and even some of the dialogue come directly from real with boys as I grew up, fell in and out of love and eventually got married. Of course, I never lived as a gay man in Manchester, UK most of the connections to my life are more a nod than an exact replica. Even so, this one is pretty special to me because of the many nods to my past. Pretty self indulgent. 
> 
> Lastly, feel free to follow me on tumblr for a lot more Tilly (and Robron and McNight and Larias and general fandom fun!) I'm auselysium there, too.
> 
> ACTUALLY lastly - the whole premise for this fic and the title come from the Don Henley song The Boys of Summer. I heard the song sitting at the pool one afternoon and the whole story formed in my head. Pretty cool.


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